Dal students displaced by fire

Residents on the 12th floor of Peter Green Hall, Shadi Shehadeh and Ananda Venkatachalam fled their apartments when a fire broke out on the floor above them. (Bruce Bottomley Photo)

A fire on the 13th floor of the 14-storey Peter Green Hall sent pajama-clad students and their families out into the wind and rain early Monday morning.

After going to bed at 2 a.m., Dalhousie PhD student Ananda Venkatachalam awoke groggily to hear the fire alarm a little before 5 a.m. and ventured into the hallway to see and smell smoke. An international student from India, he grabbed his passport and his only copy of his master’s thesis and, with his wife, immediately left his 12th floor apartment.

Meanwhile, down the hall, Dal master's student Shadi Shehadeh was trying to ignore the alarm—alarms went off frequently in the last building he lived in—and grab a few more hours of sleep before presenting a report at a seminar later in the day. But then he smelled smoke.

“You knew something was burning and that it was serious,” said Mr. Venkatachalam, a few hours later, tucking into sandwiches at the reception centre set up in Peter Green Hall’s Children’s Centre. (At lunchtime, Aramark Food Services sent over sandwich platters, drinks and sweets.) The Red Cross and Halifax’s Emergency Measures Organization were on the scene by 6 a.m., providing people with breakfast and arranging temporary shelter. 

Outside on the sidewalk, evacuated residents observed flames and heavy smoke. Windows were popping with the heat and falling to the ground. As firefighters entered the building, residents were welcomed into the building next door to wait.

The 13th floor—home to five Dalhousie students and their families— was extensively damaged. The fire “was attacked and contained” in apartment 1302, said David Meldrum, divisional captain with Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency Services.

The 12th and 14th floors sustained smoke and water damage, but by 3 p.m. in the afternoon, residents of those floors were allowed to return to their apartments.

However, residents of the 13th floor can expect to be out of their apartments for at least a few months, says Erin Edmundson, Community Development Associate for the Red Cross. Dalhousie’s Housing and Conference Services is helping to arrange accommodations in Fenwick Towers for about 20 affected people.

“A lot of the students were more worried about exams than whether they could get back in their apartments at his point,” says Terry Bourgeois, EMO operations officer.

About 280 people live in Peter Green Hall, a residence for mainly married students from Dalhousie, Saint Mary’s and Nova Scotia Community College and their families. The building at 1024 Wellington Street is owned by Dalhousie University and is leased and operated by the Halifax Student Housing Society.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.